The international organisational machinery for sustainable development: Rio and the road Beyond

Summary The June 1992 United Nations Conference on Environment and Development (UNCED) was the largest and most well attended United Nations conference of all time. The litmus test for the long-term will be whether the promises and pledges made at Rio can be taken forward by way of a process that gradually moves human society towards a more equitable and environmentally sustainable form of development. This paper focuses on two organisations that look set to play an important role in that process: the World Bank's experimental Global Environment Facility and the nascent United Nations Commission on Sustainable Development. It is argued that both these bodies must find a way to respond to the conflicting demands of developed and developing nations if their efforts are not to be stymied by the same kind of international disagreements which characterised the negotiations preceding the Summit.The author is a research associate at the Centre for Social and Economic Research on the Global Environment (CSERGE), a UK Economic and Social Research Council funded centre located jointly at the University of East Anglia and University College London. He is currently engaged in a long term research project which seeks to elucidate how governmental, business and other agencies perceive the uncertain threat of global environmental change, and how they are adapting to it.